About
Why this site exists
One member of AA, reading the history and passing it on.
Why I made it
I’m a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I made this site to give myself a reason to dig into AA’s literature: the histories, the biographies, the letters and the old newspapers. Then I share what I find with as many people as I can reach.
I hope it helps someone.
Who’s behind it
I don’t put my name on the site. AA’s Eleventh Tradition asks members to keep their anonymity at the level of press, radio and films, and AA’s own guidance treats the internet the same way.
The site is independent. It isn’t produced, approved or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, and it speaks only for me, not for AA. For AA’s own word, see aa.org.
What’s here
The Kitchen Table, on the home page, is a documentary in ten chapters on how AA began and spread.
The deep dives are illustrated histories in seven parts and a Legacy. Some are about people, from Bill W. and Dr. Bob to Sister Ignatia; others are about subjects, from a newcomer’s first meeting to the Big Book, the Steps and sponsorship.
Come Early, Stay Late answers the questions newcomers ask about meetings.
A Daily Reprieve goes with Daily Reflections, AA’s book of a reading for every day. For each day’s reading it gives a few questions to sit with, the story behind its words, and a view for chairing a meeting. It doesn’t reprint the readings, which are free at aa.org, and new days are added as they’re written.
Who, What, When and Where gathers the people, words, dates and places the deep dives name: a who’s who, a list of AA’s words, a timeline and a map. In the deep dives themselves, a name, word, date or place with a dotted underline opens a small card about it, and a small book mark after a quotation says where it comes from and whether it has been checked against the original.
The Bookshelf lists every book, pamphlet and paper the site draws on, and where you can read each one.
Search finds any word across the site: the deep dives, the film’s captions, the daily pages, the questions and the Bookshelf. It’s the magnifying glass at the top of every page.
How it’s made
I choose what goes on the site, and I work from the books. The writing, the drawings and the pages themselves are made with Claude, an AI model from Anthropic, working from those books and from archives and newspapers. The narration is read by AI voices made with ElevenLabs, not by people.
Every quotation on the deep dives and the daily pages goes on a list with the book it comes from, and I’m working through that list against the books themselves. Where the sources disagree, or only one witness tells something, the pages say so rather than picking one.
Where it comes from
AA’s own histories come first: Pass It On, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, AA Comes of Age, The Language of the Heart and the Big Book. After them come biographies, letters, newspapers and archives, named where they’re used. Every section lists its sources at the end, under Go deeper, and The Bookshelf gathers them all, with where to read each one.
Quotations are kept short and exact, and they’re there for comment and comparison.
Names
Following AA custom, members are named by first name and last initial: Bill W., Dr. Bob S. People who weren’t alcoholics, such as Dr. William D. Silkworth, are named in full. A book’s title stays as it was published, even when it gives a member’s full name.
Pictures
The illustrations are drawn for this site. They show places and objects, never people, and each caption says what it’s drawn from, or that it isn’t drawn from a photograph.
The old photographs and postcards are in the public domain or free to reuse, from collections such as the Library of Congress, and each one links to where it came from.
Printing
You’re welcome to print pages for yourself or your group. Please don’t sell them. Quotations from AA literature belong to their publishers.
Mistakes
If something’s wrong, I want to know. Every deep-dive page and every day of A Daily Reprieve has a “Something wrong here?” link, and the Contact page takes corrections. A book and page number helps. When a mistake is shown to me, I fix the page.
Questions, or a word about the site? Write to me.
Updated October 22, 2026.